World Language Mapping System

Language area and point data for Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

The World Language Mapping System (WLMS) is the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and trusted geographic dataset of the point and area (polygon) locations of the world's 7,100 living language groups.

The WLMS is the result of over 25 years of collaborative work between GMI and SIL International (SIL), to map the languages described in SIL's 17th edition Ethnologue. The data is provided in ESRI shapefile (.shp) format for GIS systems with substantially all of the data from the 17th edition Ethnologue in a .DBF and file geodatabase data table for use in further analysis.

Linguists, cultural geographers, and other researchers will find this data valuable in understanding the locations and distribution of languages throughout the world. Innovative uses have included ecology (studies of the relationship between human cultural diversity and biodiversity), political science (studies of relationship between armed conflict and linguistic boundaries), and military/counterterrorism (assignment of appropriate linguists/translators to operations in specific locations).

A file geodatabase, WLMS.gdb is also included, which contains all files except raster elevation colors and hillshades, as well as three additional tables (immigrant languages, extinct/dormant languages, sign languages).

Metadata for files was entered using the ISO 19139 Metadata Implementation Specification. This now includes descriptions of the data in each field, along with tags and other reference information.